Summary: There is no fault in the Council’s consideration of Ms B’s request that her son be allowed a decelerated start in Reception year of primary school in 2021

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Ms B, says the Council unreasonably refused her request for her summer born son, X, to start school in the Reception year rather than Year 1 in September 2021. In particular Ms B complains the Council:
• did not take proper account of her views and the supporting evidence she provided;
• did not give sufficient weight to the views of the head teachers of her preferred primary schools;
• did not properly consider the impact on her son of starting in Year 1 having missed the Reception year;
• did not justify its conclusion that it is in her son's best interests to start in Year 1 in September 2021, and mistakenly focussed on it being in his best interests to start school in Reception in September 2020; and
• has a blanket policy of refusing summer born deceleration requests and sends almost identical refusal letters in each case.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I discussed the complaint with Ms B and considered the information she provided with her complaint before reaching a draft decision on it. This included:
• a copy of Ms B’s request to defer and of the emails from the headteacher of her preferred school which she provided in support of her request;
• a copy of the Council’s letter refusing the request and of the notes of the panels’ consideration;
• copies of Ms B’s complaints following the Council’s decision and of its responses; and
• the Council’s policy on deceleration requests and relevant government guidance.
5. Ms B and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

What should have happened

The 2014 School Admissions Code

6. The Code says:
• admission authorities must provide for children to begin school in the September following their fourth birthday;
• the child’s parents can defer the date their child starts school until later in the school year but the child must start school by the beginning of the term following their fifth birthday – the compulsory school age;
• parents can choose for the child to attend school part-time until later in the school year but not beyond the compulsory school age;
• parents can seek a place for their child outside of the normal age group. This includes where the parents of a summer-born child choose not to send their child to school until the September following their fifth birthday. The child’s parents can request the child starts in Reception rather than year 1 (deferred entry). A summer-born child is one with a birthday between 1 April and 31 August;
• admission authorities must make decisions on deferred entry based on the circumstances of each case and in the best interests of the child. This includes considering the parents’ views and information about the child’s academic, social and emotional development; and
• decision letters need to clearly set out the reasons for an admission authority’s decision.

Advice on the admission of summer born children 2014

7. The Department for Education has published non-statutory guidance, ‘Advice on the admission of summer-born children – For local authorities, school admission authorities and parents’. The guidance reiterates that admission authorities must make decisions based on individual needs and abilities, and consider whether these can best be met by the child starting school in Reception or year 1. They should also take account of the potential impact on the child of being admitted into year one without first having completed the Reception year.
8. This guidance says that in general, children should be educated in their normal age group and should only be educated out of this age group in ‘very limited circumstances’. However, it goes on to say parental requests for summer-born children are “different from any other request for admission out of age group, as it is only in these circumstances that the child is being admitted to school for the first time.”
9. It makes clear that: “Parents must be able to make a decision about whether their child is ready for school before compulsory school age, confident that if they decide not to send them to school until age five, the decision about the year group they should be admitted to at that point will be made in the child’s best interests.”
10. The guidance recognises it will not always be easy for admission authorities to make a decision about a child more than a year before the point at which they may be admitted but it is clear this is the decision they must make.

The Council’s Admissions Policy

11. The Council’s Policy on summer born children says it will consider all requests for deferment on their merits. It has a process for considering such requests that involves advising the head teachers of the preferred schools who then consider these requests and provide their views to the admission authority. After this the admission authority reaches a decision it considers to be in the child’s best interests and issues a decision on the request.

What happened

12. In October 2019 Ms B wrote to the Council to request deceleration of her son’s school start date. Her July born son, X, was eligible to start school in September 2020 but she requested a decelerated start to September 2021. In her letter she provided reasons for her request which included information about her son’s development including progress of his self-care skills such as toilet training and dressing which she said were at an early stage and of the tiredness he felt after attending pre-school. She also confirmed that the headteacher of her preferred school had agreed to support her request. She said she considered it would be important for her son to have the opportunity to have a year in Reception to develop his social skills and relationships and to have the foundation learning provided in that year in order to have that basic knowledge before moving in to year 1. She provided two emails from the headteacher of her preferred school which supported her request. These emails stated “I am happy to support a decelerated start for your child…I note that your child’s birthday is right at the end of July and so a decelerated start may well be appropriate…”. In the second email the headteacher stated “I can confirm I would expect X to start in year R and remain in that year group for at least his primary year. The Reception year is too important to miss”.
13. The Council uses a panel to consider requests to decelerate. The notes of the panel’s consideration of Ms B’s request show the panel noted that there was no involvement of external agencies with X’s development and the panel’s view that “there was little evidence of X’s circumstance”. The notes go on to say that the panel was of the view that there was no evidence of any delay or educational needs that were sufficient to justify X being decelerated. Specifically the notes state “There was certainly no evidence that would justify the need for an EHC Plan assessment, which one would expect is a child required support beyond what would usually be expected to maintain their education with their peers”. The panel’s view about the support from the head teacher of the preferred school was that the headteacher said she was “happy to meet parental preference, but did not provide evidence of best interest or their own considerations and deferred to the authority”. The panel said that it considered any future concerns about X’s development would be best dealt with in a school rather than a pre-school setting as there would be more services to call on. The panel did not accept the argument Ms B put forward about the distress to X of losing his friendships at nursery if he moved straight to year 1 as they decided that he would be caused more emotional distress by not being moved up with his friends from nursery and may experience upset from being held back when his friends were moving on at that stage. The panel also noted that there could be a greater impact on X if he was refused deceleration at a later point in his school career. The panel concluded “Overall the panel could not agree that it was in X's best interest to be educated outside of his normal age group. The offer of additional support is available to parents in a Reception Year placement from September 2020. However, if they wish X to enter school at CSA, the panel rules it in X's best interest to start in Year 1, alongside his chronological peers”.
14. The Council wrote to Ms B in early November rejecting her request. The letter said the reasons for this decision were:
• it was not clear there was any compelling medical evidence to justify the need for education outside normal age group;
• no evidence of any significant delays in X’s development;
• it would benefit X’s speech and language development to be immersed in “high quality language” that would be best provided in mainstream school rather than a pre-school;
• X's social interactions could be properly supported in his own age group;
• all of X's needs could be met by educating him in his normal age group; and
• any special educational needs identified in the future could be managed by curriculum differentiation and reasonable adjustments within X’s normal year group.
15. The letter went on to advise Ms B that she could request part-time admission to the allocated school from the September following X's fourth birthday, request to defer X's entry until later in the school year or request to defer his entry until the September following his fifth birthday to start in year 1.
16. In late November Ms B submitted a complaint about this decision. In her complaint she said she considered the Council had failed to properly consider the correct question which was whether X should enter year 1 or Reception in September 2021. She confirmed that X would not be starting school until September 2021. Specifically, she said the Council’s response had failed to address:
• how X would cope physically, emotionally and socially if he were to be placed into year 1 in his first year of formal schooling;
• the information they had provided about X’s development which included reports on his progress from his nursery, wrongly relying on the lack of professional evidence of developmental delay as grounds to refuse the request;
• the letter sent to them contained identical information sent to other parents who made the same request and this implied the Council had not specifically considered X’s individual needs;
• the Council was applying the wrong rules in relation to referring to the lack of special educational needs as another ground not to agree to the deferral request;
• the Council had focussed on why it would be in X’s best interests to start school in September 2020 rather than looking at the arguments and evidence Ms B had provided regarding her request that he be allowed to start in Reception rather than year 1 in September 2021;
• the headteacher’s views; and
• the potential impact of X being admitted to year 1 without having first completed the Reception year instead focussing on why he would better starting in Reception in 2020.
17. The Council provided its response in December. It stated it had properly considered Ms B’s request, had addressed the correct question and concluded that the correct year group for X to join in September 2021 would be Year 1. The letter went on to confirm that the Council was confident that X’s needs could be accommodated should he begin school in September 2020 and that it considered X’s best interests would be met if he remained with his chronological peers, accessing age-appropriate role models. The letter also confirmed the Council was confident that X’s needs could also be met if he started in September 2021 in year 1. In response to Ms B’s concerns that X would have to settle into a group of children he would not know if he joined year 1 in 2021 the Council said schools were adept at accommodating children joining established classes and would be able to manage this. The Council also stated that whilst it accepted there was evidence of delay in several areas of X’s development, this was not to a degree that would cause considerable concern about him entering school with his chronological age group.
18. In response to Ms B’s complaint that the Council had not considered X’s individual needs, the Council said it acknowledged her concern that there may be generalised information not specific to X in the decision letter but argues this was not evidence that it had not considered X’s individual circumstances, but rather that his circumstances had been considered against a large amount of educational research, knowledge and experience. It said individual children’s needs were considered in the context of expertise in child development and the knowledge of what is on offer in local school and pre-school settings.
19. The Council also said that while being summer born was enough for the request to be considered, it was not, of itself, a guarantee that the request must be agreed and its duty was to consider the overall best interests of the child meaning evidence of significant delays in a child’s development could be a significant factor when considering a request.
20. The Council did not accept that its decision letter did not clearly set out the reasons for the original decision but did accept that it could have provided more information on its consideration of the ‘potential impact on the child of being admitted to Year 1 without having first completed the Reception Year’.
21. Ms B was dissatisfied with this response and escalated her complaint to the second stage of the complaints process. She submitted her further complaint in late December 2019 stating she still believed the Council had not answered the correct question and was therefore requesting an independent review of the decision.
22. The stage 2 investigator found that the Council officer who had considered the complaint at stage 1 of the complaints procedure reviewed the decision of the panel that considered the original request even though she had been a member of this panel. The stage 2 investigator considered this gave an impression of bias and apologised to Ms B for this. The stage 2 investigator did, however, go on to decide there was no fault in the Council’s consideration of Ms B’s request and that, even if the initial response could have been clearer on this, the stage 1 response did provide a clear explanation of the decision-making and what had been taken into account. The investigator did not therefore uphold the complaint.
23. The Council has previously provided this office with information on the number of deceleration requests it had received for summer born children since 2015. The Council did not have data before the 2018/19 year and said it received 13 requests that year and 22 requests for the 2019/20 year. Of these it said it agreed 11 in the 2018/19 years and 15 in the 2019/20 year. The remaining applications were refused. The information provided showed that some but not all of the applications agreed were for children with special educational needs.

Was the Council at fault and did this cause injustice?

24. I consider the Council did properly address Ms B’s request for a decelerated start for her son ie that she wanted him to start school in the Reception year in 2021 rather than year 1. I recognise that the focus of the Council’s letter was why the Council considered X could start in Reception in 2020 despite the concerns Ms B expressed about his stage of development backed up by information about the assessment of this by his pre-school but in focussing on why it considered X could manage this and would be best serviced by this, it also effectively explained why it did not consider deceleration was in his interests. In line with the findings of the investigator at stage 2 of the complaints process I consider the explanation provided in the stage 1 complaint response was very clear on this, more so than the original decision letter. I do not consider the evidence suggests that the Council failed to take proper account of Ms B’s views or the supporting evidence she provided.
25. I consider the Council did take account of the views of the headteachers of Ms B’s preferred primary schools. They are referred to in the panel minutes. It is my view that the headteacher I have referred to above clearly did offer her support and said that given X’s young age he may well benefit from a decelerated start in Reception . This is not reflected in the minutes entirely accurately. However, I do consider the evidence suggest the panel did consider the grounds of the request and the information provided about X’s development thoroughly so I am not persuaded that this somewhat inaccurate summary of the headteacher’s support significantly affected the panel’s decision. The guidance does not state that the headteacher’s advice/view must be adhered to, and as the panel clearly considered it, there are no grounds for me to conclude there was fault in the Council’s consideration of this advice.
26. I consider the evidence in both the panel minutes and the additional detail provided in the stage 1 response demonstrate that the Council did properly consider the impact of X not receiving education in Reception if he started in year 1 in 2021 because it thoroughly addressed why it considered X was ready to start Reception in 2020 and this included looking at the impact of missing this provision if he started in year 1 in 2021. I recognise that Ms B is disappointed by the Council’s decision but it is not the Ombudsman’s role to adjudicate what X’s best interests are and we cannot question the merits of a decision when there is no evidence of fault.
27. I consider the panel minutes and the response to the stage 1 complaint provide a better explanation of how and why the panel reached its conclusion that the decision letter issued in November 2019. Whilst it would have been better for the decision letter to have addressed the reasons more thoroughly, this does not in itself persuade me that the matter was not properly considered at the time as the evidence suggests to me that it was.
28. The evidence provided and referred to in paragraph 23 above does not support Ms B’s contention that the Council has a blanket policy of refusing summer born deceleration requests. I do not dispute that the Council uses standard paragraphs in its refusal letters. I accept that it may be more efficient for the Council to do so but it would have been clearer if the letter had also included reference to the specific consideration the panel gave to Ms B’s request. I recognise that the Admissions Code requires councils to clearly set out the reasons for an admission authority’s decision on a deceleration request and have carefully considered whether the Council’s letter to Ms B met this requirement. I have decided that there are no grounds for me to conclude that it did not but that greater detail on the consideration would be helpful for parents to understand the reasons for the decision more fully. As I do not consider its letter is evidence of fault there are no grounds for me to formally ask the Council to provide more detail in its letter but, when I write to the Council, I will ask it to consider doing so for the sake of greater clarity for parents in the future.

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Final decision

29. There was no fault by the Council in its consideration of Ms B’s request for a decelerated school start for her son in September 2021.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman